Knowing is Agony
by Falling Tears of Death
Summary: Being Iruka means that there are some things you just know, even when you don’t really want to. yaoi. R/R


Summary: Being Iruka means that there are some things you just know, even when you don't really want to.

Warnings: Mentions of Kakashi/Iruka.

Spoiler Alert: If you are not up to date on Kakashi's current plot line….don't read, go catch up.

A/N: Written for my wonderful aniki Indigo's Ocean who loves to challenge me =). Read and Review!! P.S. I don't own a thing….someone wanna give me Naruto for valentine's day?

--Luno  
Come back to me the way you were  
The way you were when we were young  
I'm trying to tell you everything  
I'm trying to tell you everything—Bloc Party

Kakashi's not eating. He's not eating and Iruka knows it in the same way Iruka knows everything. He's very observant. Maybe not in the tactical way, maybe not in the way that saves lives or in a way that's useful but still…he sees. Everything.

It comes with the territory, being a teacher. Its almost unsaid, you have to…watch a lot. And bite the inside of your cheek until it fills with the taste of blood. Sometimes Iruka wonders if that's what Kakashi's mouth taste like….blood. Maybe from all the wounds he must lick underneath the cotton covering his mouth, hiding it from the world…from everyone. Just enough so that his grimace looks like a smile.

There's a greater chance of Kakashi's mouth tasting like blood than like anything else because Kakashi isn't eating. Iruka remembers it clearly just two weeks ago and Kakashi is at the bar barely touching his coffee, sitting alone and gripping the handle tightly, so very tightly it should break. Iruka wonders what Kakashi would do if it broke. Would he pull his mouth down and swipe the blood away quickly or would he just….let it drip until it dried against his skin like a blaring tattoo. One of many.

Iruka wants to know, still wants to know all the would have, could have, and should have beens and maybe he already does, because sitting in his cold corner of the café --Iruka watches. Kind of in the same way that he watches his students run and notices a bruise on a young girl's upper thigh. More like in the same way he watched Naruto's smile fall from his face whenever he would look at Sasuke sitting alone. Very close to the way Sakura watched when Sasuke left and never looked back and never had any intention of being Sasuke again because deep down Sasuke really wasn't that special. He was one of many. Filed right beside Mizuki in Iruka's memory of things.

And Iruka has a good memory. A very good memory. So good he can remember the smell of his dad's rotting body, and the fire of the Kyubi, and Kakashi's lonely tears that one time not so long ago…drunk and alone in the hospital room. So good that he can remember the look on Kakashi's face when they were younger and Kakashi had felt a lot less like a hero and more like a failure.

Kind of how he must feel now.

And Iruka, he knows it. Because he's been there. _Is _there…that place. That place of being a secret failure, which is really the worst kind of failure you can be. He's there in that place that lies underneath his bottomless paperwork and somewhere so deep that the warm of ramen cannot attempt to fill it.

The steam from the coffee hit Kakashi's face making him look kind of like a ghost and something like panic stirs in Iruka's very gut. Kakashi is looking at him with his one eye, head held in his hand, sorrow sinking into his sullen cheeks. He raises one eyebrow in an exhaustive way and stares—watching.

Iruka doesn't move, not used to being watched and simply looks down at his soup. Its getting cold. "Things are changing" Kakashi's voice is light and sure and sprinkled with that tell-tale amusement as if there's this joke that he alone is in on. It looks like he's smirking, his eyes watching as Kiba and Neji walk in, both with faces full with something akin to loneliness. It's a look that sadly enough suits them well.

Iruka nods, watching the pair take a booth, contemplating. "Well Kakashi, they can't stay the same." It's kind of an obvious response but really Iruka thinks it was an obvious statement and so it's fitting in the same way Kakashi is fitting, moving his way to Iruka's lonely corner. He shrugs lazily, cocking his head as if to get a better look at—something.

"Of course they can. If I want them to." And the light had hit his face then, just so, just so that Iruka felt like if it had been just a little brighter he could have seen underneath Kakashi's layers and seen right into his eye. The realization strikes this sharp prickle of fear and for this small moment Iruka is sure he'd throw up.

"Well _do_ you want them to, Kakashi?" And Iruka is genuinely interested in the same way he is genuinely flattered when one of his kids draw him a picture, in the same way he is genuinely sad Naruto isn't here. Iruka can't help but notice the way Kakashi furrows his brow and clenches his hand on the table in thought. He sighs and it's very ….unfitting.

"Tell me something Iruka. What do _you_ want?" He sounds tired, and looking at him then Iruka could see he was pale, the exhaustion hanging from underneath his eyes like oversized anchors. Paler than usual and almost too thin. Really Iruka just wants to offer him some cold soup but he's not sure that will help. Really Iruka just wants everything to go back to how it was.

Back when he didn't feel so useless, outdated, removed. "I think" Iruka had begun, slowly as if trying to find the words to explain where babies come from to a child "I think I'd like to retire someday." And Kakashi had smiled then. Really smiled and Iruka had known that because he could feel it, spreading into his own face. "Mm. That sounds…that sounds better than a lot of things. Especially when you put it like that."

For a second Iruka had felt, well he had felt…really good and inspired and kind of like kissing Kakashi or something. But he didn't, the moment sort of trickled through and Iruka found himself spinning his cold soup, watching the never ending steam rise from Kakashi's cup precipitating on his face like tears.

Still now, Iruka wonders if he had kissed him what Kakashi would taste like. Probably better than most things. Now, Iruka thinks Kakashi must taste like blood, like bones, like forever, like sorrow, like something lost that would never ever come back. Kakashi must taste dead like almost everything Iruka has ever held and still, even while he's lowered into his dirt grave Iruka wants to kiss him, hug him, tell him that change doesn't always have to be the end.

Or something, any of the things that would have worked when Naruto was still 10 and still needed him. When Sasuke was Sasuke and no one else and Iruka didn't have to feel _so _useless.

Anything that would have worked maybe when Kakashi wasn't so pale, so cold, so far, so dead, so thin. Anything that maybe could have worked when Kakashi used to just have two eyes and wasn't trapped in forever and ever. Anything that should have worked when things were still worth saving, when things had just remained the same and Kakashi was eating.

But Kakashi _isn't _eating, isn't reading, isn't licking bleeding wounds, or even bleeding at all. Kakashi isn't anymore and this breaks Iruka's heart in a way that Iruka _knows _like he knows everything else. Because he's here. Burying Kakashi along with other lifeless masses in an unmarked grave. Burying him in the same exact way he had buried his parents not so long ago.

It didn't matter that Kakashi had known things, useful things, tactical things, things that had saved so many lives things. He was still here, covered in red dirt and he was still….wrong. Things don't change-- at least not as much as Kakashi thought they did.

--Why can't it be beautiful  
why does there  
gotta be a sacrifice—Tori Amos


End file.
